Amazon's Crucible, a third-person hero shooter that mixes elements from games like Overwatch, League of Legends, and Fortnite for an interesting new mix of gameplay elements, is available now on Steam. It features a lean but mean roster of wildly varied characters that all feel pretty unique, even when compared to other games.

The game's paid-for downloadable content is no longer publicly listed on Steam. We’re back with another developer update: we're taking Crucible into closed beta starting tomorrow. Red Crucible Firestorm is a fast paced multiplayer FPS game. Players can experience intense arena gameplay as infantry or as vehicle operators. What makes RCF unique is the fact that you can customize your solder to meet your gameplay needs. Guns and vehicles can be unlocked and even upgraded.

For anyone struggling to decide which new characters to play as, here's every member of the Crucible roster with some targeted recommendations based on what characters you use in games like Overwatchand Apex Legends.

Captain Mendoza

Choose Captain Mendoza if you like ... Soldier: 76 in Overwatch or prefer simple gunplay.

Every hero shooter needs its stalwart soldier archetype, and Crucible's Captain Mendoza fits that description. A hardened veteran from the Unity army, he uses a pulse plasma rifle for his primary attack and has a sprint ability with no cooldown (just like Soldier: 76), which gives him great mobility. Additionally, he has a grenade that can use for some extra attack power in battle.

While he's a good attacker, Captain Mendoza can support other players too. One of his abilities allows him to call down a barrier and medkit, which can be crucial during intense firefights. He even gets an extra health boost to give him an edge if players gain enough essence from Harvesters and killing enemies. Even though he's the most standard of Crucible's roster and a bit too similar to Soldier: 76, that also makes him one of the easiest to learn for newcomers.

Summer

Choose Summer if you like ... MOBAs and Overwatch characters like Pharah and/or Doomfist.

Summer is one of Crucible'smore unique and entertaining characters because she feels more like a MOBA character than one from a shooter. All of her attacks are centered around her flamethrowers. She can hit opponents with a standard mid-range flamethrower attack, but also has the ability to lob flame balls and even boost herself into the air (hence the Doomfist comparison) with an area-of-effect Magma style ability. The flamethrowers also allow Summer to leap great distances, giving her the best mobility of any Crucible character, similar to Pharah, but like that rocket-powered Overwatch fighter, her mobility comes with a catch.

Rather than ability cooldowns, all of her abilities contribute to an overheating meter that, if filled up, will render her unable to attack. Playing as her effectively then becomes a struggle of striking that balance, so you'll spend your time weighing the risk versus reward.

Drakahl

Choose Drakahl if you like ... playing as Doomfist or Reinhardt from Overwatch, or other heavier melee characters.

Drakahl stands out from the rest of Crucible'sroster as he is a melee-focused character that wields a giant axe. He can fire a sonic boom from the axe, giving him a ranged attack option akin to Reinhardt's Fire Strike. The main gimmick of Drukhal is that he can chain together several abilities; he can slam on the ground, pull enemies towards him, and/or swirl around dealing a massive amount of damage. That basically makes him a precise blend of Reinhardt and Doomfist.

As a large and slow character, Drakahl can become a major target. Due to his size, he also has a hard time combating smaller opponents. As such, it can be a bit tricky to get the hang of at first, so we don't recommend him for newcomers. Players who plan to spend a lot of time learning Drakhal or who like atypical hero shooter characters will find a lot to enjoy here though.

Tosca

Choose Tosca if you like ... Caustic from Apex Legends and are obsessed with Rocket Racoon from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Tosca is a small but useful character that can be annoying for your opponents to deal when if used properly. She mainly uses an acid gun as her primary fire, but she can also get a ping on enemy locations through any visual obstructions (think Widowmaker's ultimate), teleport through walls, slow opponents down with a sticky bomb, and even create a cloud of gas that protects allies by obscuring everyone's vision, which makes her one of the best characters to use if your main strategy is to ambush other players.

Tosca is hard to compare to single character from another hero shooter, though the most direct comparison might be Caustic from Apex Legends with elements of Widowmaker and Echo from Overwatch.

Rahi & Brother

Choose Rahi & Brother if you like ... Symmetra or Sombra from Overwatch and Crypto from Apex Legends.

Rahi & Brother may remind you of Ashe from Overwatch at first glance as a human and robot duo, but Rahi's offensive short-range laser and shielding abilities more closely resemble Symmetra. The short-range laser that converts some of the damage dealt into his shield and also powers up his melee attack. He also can send out a shield that will protect allies and slow down enemies.

Brother, the little drone robot, spots enemies and gives Rahi a location to teleport to, giving this character decent mobility when paired with the super jump ability in a way that feels like a mix of Overwatch's Sombra with Apex Legends' Crypto.

Ajonah

Choose Ajonah if you like ...playing as Widowmaker in Overwatch orsniping as Pathfinder in Apex Legends.

Crucible Steamspy

Ajonah is the closest thing Crucible has to a traditional sniper character at launch, even if she uses a harpoon gun instead of a sniper rifle. Still, she can deal a lot of damage from afar and become even more powerful when aiming down sights. To disrupt enemies, Ajonah's other abilities allow her to throw flying, damage-dealing mines, and a jamming shroud that blocks her and her allies' locations from location-tracking heroes like Tosca or Rahi & Brother.

While she's not the fastest character, Ajonah has a grappling hook that lets her get to prime locations for sniping, something you can find with both Widowmaker and Pathfinder. If you're often drawn to the sniper archetype, then Ajonah is the first Crucible character that you should check out.

Bugg

Choose Bugg if you like ...Symmetra and Torbjorn's turrets in Overwatch or Wattson's traps in Apex Legends.

While Bugg is the cutest Crucible character, they shouldn't be underestimated. Bugg is a quick, trap-laying robot that can move fast thanks to his thrusters. Bugg uses 'seed pod' ammunition, which doesn't just damage enemies but can be shot at the ground to create plants. Spraying them makes them grow faster, and they function as excellent damage-dealing traps that will devastate the game's slower characters.

From a support standpoint, Bugg also has an area of effect attack that grants shield to nearby teammates as well as a gas trail that debuff opponents. While Bugg isn't the heaviest hitter, they are hard to take down. Bugg finds a unique middle ground between different character archetypes and is a helpful choice for players who aren't as good at directly attacking enemies.

Earl

Choose Earl if you like ... Orisa and Reinhardt from Overwatch.

Earl is a large heavy-hitter that uses a quad cannon named after his wife Misty. His abilities are mostly centered around this one massive Gatling gun. One powers up his shots, another creates a shield that can deflect projectiles, and a third gives him a rocket boost to blast him around the map just like Reinhardt's Charge.

While he's a big target, he can also be frustrating to deal with because of his versatility. If you like heavy, high-damage characters in hero shooters, then Earl should be your choice.

Sazan

Crucible Steam Charts

Choose Sazan if you like ... Bangalore from Apex Legends and Ashe from Overwatch.

Crucible Steam Stats

While their abilities are slightly different, Sazan is very similar to Bangalore in concept: a hardened military veteran with a lot of damaging options at her disposal. She features an electro gun and shotgun that she can switch between at any time. She also can throw a knife to damage enemies from far away, which makes her a curious mix between Overwatch characters like Ashe and a Hunter from Destiny 2. Her dash can get her into an out of battle quickly too.

Sazan can't do much in the way of healing, but she's another good choice, like Earl, for players who want to focus on attacking the other team more than anything else. She will ultimately prove herself to be useful in a battle royale inspired mode like Alpha Hunters for those reasons.

Shakirri

Choose Shakirri if you like ... Genji from Overwatch and Gibraltar from Apex Legends.

Shakirri switches between being a melee and shooting focused character. From far away, players can use her pistol before switching to her sword for up-close attack. She can also create a shield similar to Gibraltar's bubble shield from Apex Legendsthat doesn't only protect allies but traps enemies as well, which is a step-up from Winston's in Overwatch. She can also spawn a holo shield in front of herself for some extra protection from direct gunfire, also just like Gibraltar's passive ability.

Shakirri is a fairly mixed character that most resemble's Overwatch's Genji as a lighter melee-focused option, though the shield abilities do bring her closer to a character like Gibraltar. Shakirri in general seems like she'd be best for players who don't want to nail themselves down to a particular playstyle and prefer versatility and utility.

Crucible is available now as a free-to-play game on Steam.

Less than two months after the formal launch of Amazon Games' first major PC game on Steam, Crucible, the company has chosen to yank it right out of Steam's store. Its developers at Relentless Studios (a wholly owned Amazon subsidiary) have announced plans to delist the free-to-play action-MOBA game from Steam starting tomorrow, July 1, while continuing to operate the game as a 'closed beta' for anyone who already downloaded the game (or paid for one of its 'founders packs' of cosmetic DLC).

In an announcement on the game's official site, its developers describe this change as a way to 'help us focus on providing the best possible experience for our players.' As far as remaining players go, however, that assurance may ring a bit hollow, since its delisting will likely reduce the available player pool from its already minuscule population (as of press time, it has only had more than 200 concurrent players once over the past week).

Crucible Steam Forum

Although the game will continue to launch through Steam, starting at 12pm on July 1, new players will no longer be able to search for the game and freely download its client. Instead, they'll have to sign up to play the game at the official site, where they will wait for a closed-beta invite. (If you think you'll want to play the game eventually and want to save yourself some headaches, head to Crucible's Steam listing and add it to your library right now.)

Another action-MOBA bites the dust?

Arguably, this move is less about helping the game's developers alter and upgrade the game's contents and more about changing the way outsiders view its tiny player population. Relentless Studios, the wholly owned Amazon subsidiary responsible for the game, was already able to make drastic changes to the Crucible client in the past month, particularly by removing an entire game mode in order to better focus its remaining player population.

Crucible Steam Game

Amazon Games' inexperience with the games-as-a-service sector was already a worrying issue when Crucible launched in mid-May. It's still unclear why the company chose to launch the game to the public in a wide-open, '1.0' state in May as opposed to testing the waters of public perception with invite-only beta tests or a soft, 'early access' launch. (The reasoning didn't seem to be entirely about making money via microtransactions, as all players who signed up over the past month were given roughly $10 of free credits for joining the game's launch period.) That kind of sudden rush to market was doubly weird in the case of this game's 'action-MOBA' genre, since other major forays into that gameplay model, particularly Epic's Paragon and Gearbox's Battleborn, had so loudly crashed and burned.

Crucible Steam Charts

Amazon Crucible Steam

While Relentless has offered insight into its plans for updating and developing the game over time, the studio still hasn't committed to adding built-in text chat—a serious oversight for a game that cannot be won without coordinated strategies—or systems to deal with rage-quitters so that dedicated players don't get punished for sticking to unwinnable 3v4 or 2v4 matches. (The only consolation as of press time is a mild boost for lopsided teams and a somewhat new 'surrender' option.)

Also, since Relentless is taking this game back behind a curtain for tinkering, I'll add one small request: change the name of the game before you relaunch. 'Crucible' has long been established as the mode name for Destiny and Destiny 2's versus modes.